They’ve arrested that father in Romulus,

charged him with arson and murder.

On the news, he’s yanked away in handcuffs,

angular with anger and grief.

 

Paul, burly in a cardigan, reads about a dying man.

Jerry reads edgy poems about his new wife.

And while they read, I wonder, where’s the wall?

What does this fence look like,

the barrier a man climbs over, or a group of men,

in the middle of the night, carrying a gas can or plane tickets,

what is the name of this high river they ford

when they think no one is watching?

 

Jerry talks about a dog he saw,

a hungry black dog gussied up

in a purple neck bandanna,

roaming loose around the Farmers Market.

And then he’s off to another poem,

 

but I’m still with that dog,

lurking near the free-range chicken stand,

intent, gleeful, unpredictable, thrilling,

a question mark of appetite.

He weaves among the baby strollers,

wildness rising, kept in check—just—

by the blissful crowd.

—from Audience: a long poem; Ithaca: Vista Periodista, 2007

 

"My book Audience contains poems I wrote in response to performances I attended over the year following September 11, 2001. I wrote this poem after attending a reading by Ithaca College faculty members Jerry Mirskin and Paul Cody, whose work I admire. In it I am thinking about men and violence—in the work of the writers; in a local tragedy where a father burned down his house, killing his wife and four young children; and in the actions of the 9/11 terrorists."                                                       —Bridget Meeds

 

Ithaca-based Bridget Meeds is the author of the long poem Light, about a year working in a pizzeria in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Tuning the Beam, about a month as a poet-in-residence at a laboratory for high-energy particle physics. Her most recent collection, Audience, was published in 2007.